Rafael D. Arteaga, a former associate pastor, was sentenced last week to two years in prison for the aggravated sexual battery of a 4-year-old girl inside his church.
Arteaga, 60, of Springfield, has served 20 months of his sentence, including more than 16 months at the Fairfax County Adult Detention Center and more than three months at the Western State Hospital, a psychiatric facility in Staunton, Va.
"The sadness starts with what happened to this 4-year-old," said defense attorney Patrick N. Anderson at Arteaga's sentencing hearing Friday, Feb. 16 in Fairfax County Circuit Court.
THE 4-YEAR-OLD was playing at a playground across the street from St. Mark's Lutheran Church in June 2005.
When the girl told her mother she was thirsty, Arteaga, who had been talking with the girl's mother, offered to take her into the church for water. He sexually assaulted her inside the church, and the victim told her mother what happened the next morning.
Arteaga, who had been employed by the church since September 2001, pleaded guilty to aggravated sexual battery in September 2006.
Arteaga "almost assuredly will be deported" since he came to the United States from El Salvador as a religious worker and will no longer be a legal citizen now that he resigned his position at the church, Anderson said.
ARTEAGA WAS EVALUATED to determine his competency to stand trial after showing signs of mental illness before and during his preliminary hearing in Fairfax County Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court in July 2005.
"He is a shell of the man he was prior to this crime," Anderson said.
Dr. Ronald Boggio, a clinical psychiatrist, diagnosed Arteaga with delusional disorder and also classified him as a "low risk for recidivism."
"Certainly he is going to need medication for mental illness and sex offender treatment," Boggio testified at Arteaga's sentencing hearing Friday.
Arteaga had no prior criminal history, and sentencing guidelines in the case called for three to six months.
Sentencing guidelines are "woefully inadequate," said Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Camille Turner. "We have a 4-year-old victim in this case. We can never predict how this type of experience might impact her as she is growing up," she said.
THE MOTHER of the 4-year-old did not appear in court and did not write a victim impact statement.
"No 4-year-old should have to endure what this child endured," said Anderson. But Arteaga has already served more than three times the suggested guidelines, he said, and has been "severely punished" with the loss of his citizenship, career and marriage — once he is deported — "all because of one terrible incident, difficult to understand."
Before sentencing him, Fairfax County Circuit Court Judge Leslie M. Alden said she considered the impact statements written in support of Arteaga and all the positive things Arteaga did for people's lives.
She sentenced Arteaga to 15 years in prison, and suspended 13 years. She mandated that he remain on probation for 13 years following his release, register as a sexual offender, undergo sexual offender treatment and have no unsupervised contact with children in the future.
As Arteaga's wife, congregants and former clergy sat in the Fairfax Circuit Courtroom, Alden asked Arteaga if he wished to say anything to the court.
"Only that I'm sorry," he said.